NZ Minister wants to plan RAMSI's transition to development in Solomons

The New Zealand foreign minister, Murray McCully, says he wants to use his visit to Solomon Islands to push for a better plan for the Regional Assistance Mission's transition into development work.

Mr McCully has arrived in Honiara to meet the Solomons government and the new special co-ordinator of RAMSI, which has been the country's security backbone for eight years.

He says New Zealand's wish to revisit the mission's scope needs to be done jointly with other participating countries.

"It would be a mistake for us just to sit back and say we're there until after the next election. I think the current government there has shored up his position. We've got ministers there that we need to be talking to as well. I'm going to be making sure that we have a very active conversation about what the way forward looks like for RAMSI, what it means in terms of the shift from security to development work."